The Customer Success Mindset - Can Your Business Benefit?

 You may have heard the term “Customer Success”.

What does it mean to you and your company?  
Is it just a new way to say customer satisfaction or customer service?  ​Can any business use this type of thinking? 

Customer Success is focused on ensuring your customers achieve their desired outcomes while using your product or service.  This focus can improve loyalty and reduce customer churn. 

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How does it differ from customer service or satisfaction?
Customer Success is proactive, while customer service is reactive. Good customer service increases the chance of customer success by solving problems as they arise, on a case by case basis. Documenting re-occurring problems is important feedback for product/process  improvement.
 
Customer Success helps companies better understand what the customer is experiencing, how the customers use the product and/or services – from the customer’s perspective. Customer success can use feedback from Customer Service and other sources to see where customers are succeeding and where help is needed. 

Customer Success is a vital part of Customer Satisfaction. If the product doesn’t perform to expectations, or the buyer isn’t informed/educated in the proper use, then it’s not likely the customer will be satisfied. But since customers perception is formed through multiple experiences with the company, there are other factors that can also affect overall satisfaction. 

What does Customer Success look like in action?
Software companies are leading the effort to implement the customer success mindset. For example, Pendo, located in Raleigh North Carolina, makes software for product managers. They measure the number and frequency of features  used in a certain time period. If a customer seems to take longer than average to implement, they follow up with interviews to find out why. They also measure the NPS (Net Promoter Score) which reinforces that customer success is everyone’s job.
 

​So, you might be thinking, this is great for software companies, but what does this mean for my product or service business? It may be easier to implement in a software product (where more feedback is automated) but most businesses can benefit from using the customer success mindset to improve loyalty and reduce churn. You can start by asking “what else can we do to make customers successful” when looking for new product ideas or process innovations.  Here are a few keys to implementing Customer Success thinking:
 
1) First, define: 

• What does “success” mean to your customer?
• How can your product/service enable your customers to achieve that success?
• Does that change over time? 

 
2) Test and measure which factors have the greatest impact on customer success – then emphasize them. Identify and interview customers who aren’t achieving success with your product to out find the reasons why.

• Where are the pain points?  What would help alleviate or bypass them? – For example, are your forms user-friendly? Could communication or explanations be clarified?
• What you can do to make your customers more successful. For example, are there items, features, or points of contact that need to be added, modified or removed?
• What’s the appropriate timing for engaging and monitoring customers?
• Are there media or channels where the customers would prefer to get support information?

 
3) Get your whole team on board with Customer Success

• Make sure the whole team recognizes that they are responsible. A good way to do this is to track the NPS as a main metric. Align your teams, reward systems, and communications to proactively retain customers and strengthen relationships. 

 

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The customer success mindset can be applied to a wide variety of products and businesses.
How do you apply the Customer Success mindset to your business?  What key metrics do you use?
​Feel free to add a comment. 
 
Thanks for reading!  Best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a great start to the New Year!
 
Nancy